In the honeymoon period of e-publishing, I was completely in
its thrall. After decades of cowering under trad pub snobbishness, crushing
rejections, marketing laziness and worst of all taking a year or more to publish
a book, writers got a fairy godfather in the form of Jeff Bezos (Amazon) who
offered a fabulous alternative.
Jeff Bezos turned the ether into the best bookstore in the
world and this bookstore didn’t yank your books after two weeks or put them on
a high shelf. This bookstore kept
your books on display for as long as you wanted. Jeff Bezos said: “Here, this is for all of you writers. It’s free. It’s inclusive.
It’s global. I’ll sell your books for a tiny fraction of what the big
six charge and you get to control everything. Instead of getting paltry
royalties twice a year and never earning out your advances, you can set your
book price, put your book on sale, change your cover, tweak your blurbs and
experiment with marketing. And you
can do any of this in a matter of minutes. You can track your sales 24/7. Instead of rejection notes, we
send congratulatory e-mails. Is
there any writer out there who doesn’t see this as a miracle?
Fast forward to 2013.
The e-book business is still the best marketplace however the landscape
has changed, In the old days (2009-2011) a price of 0.99 was a sure way to
drive sales and you could count on volume to justify the low price. When that ploy glutted the market and dimmed
as a marketing tool, the “free” maneuver came to the rescue. If you let your book go free for a
couple of days and got enough sites to mention the free book, a gush of sales
followed when the book went back to ‘paid’. It had to do with something called algorithms that enhanced
your book’s visibility. (Sales are
all about visibility.) Free
downloads became so popular that actual sales slowed. Free wasn’t working as
well. Newly re-configured algorithms
reduced the book’s visibility. In the last half of 2012 sales sank for many
e-books. In early 2013, I went to
my favorite forum, The Writer’s Cafe, and noticed several people were asking
about advertising and seeking reliable sites for their ad dollars.
I am, by nature, frugal. The idea of paying for advertising took some mental
adjustment but when I saw several books shoot up in the rankings after an ad on
BookBub, I decided to give it a go even though it could cost hundreds of dollars
that I might not earn back. BookBub has an editorial review board that sometimes
turns down requests for advertising.
They check out your oeuvre on
Amazon, reviews, etc. to see if the title will fit their model for a successful
run. They want you to earn out the cost of the ad.
My first ad with BookBub was for Nothing To Lose. I had asked to advertise 100
Open Houses but they “advised” me to choose something else. The editors
at BookBub placed NTL in the Women’s Fiction category and charged me $130 (currently $180.) I was so pleased with the results of
this ad I scheduled another for last Sunday. This ad was for Daughters and it cost $280.

In the future, ads might fade as a sure-fire way to produce
sales or ad prices may become prohibitive. Something else will come along. I could just do nothing and be satisfied
with reduced sales. The important
lesson is that when necessary, I know how to put on my big girl shoes and take
care of business. I am finally a grown up.
Consuelo, thanks so much for posting this. I've been curious about BookBub & your experience is most encouraging. Good for you! And for your excellent books!
ReplyDeleteHi, Ruth,
Deletee-mail me if you want more info. The figures posted are for both Amazon and B%N. I was happy with the results.
Consuelo, I'm glad you had such success with Bookbub. Yours is not the only success I've heard of but I'm still trying to justify the pricing. As for paying for advertising in general, just another tool in our arsenal for promotion. I wish you continued success.
ReplyDeleteLisa, if you need more info, let me know and we'll e-mail. The prices gave me pause, too. And the first few hours were slow but once it got going, it went well. I don't know if it works as well with all genres. C
DeleteThanks for sharing this! I've been hovering around BookBub and wondering about it. I haven't done any paid advertising yet, and while the free days still seem to be working for me, I'm fully aware it won't be the way to go forever. I did fork out a bit for a run with ebookbooster.com, which will be promoting some free days for me next week. But I'm hoping for some more avenues for promotion. This gives me food for thought!
ReplyDeleteHi Diane,
DeleteIf you don't already subscribe to BookBub, do so and watch how the books in your genre do over the days of the ad. Not all books do fantastically well but I think everyone at least earns out their $.
e-mail me if you want any additional info. Happy Spring!
I keep hearing that BookBub is the way to go. But it sure is expensive--especially if you write mysteries. Thanks for the great overview of the past few years in indie-land. Really useful stuff.
ReplyDeleteHi Anne,
DeleteI dawdled over the expense, too. I know it gets very pricy for mysteries. One way to reassure yourself is to subscribe to BookBub (free) and watch your category books each day and see how they do. That's what I did with mine and was satisfied that at the very least, I'd earn my $ back. It's hard to click that buy button.